Warbird Information Exchange

This picture of these royal navy corsairs caught my eye today.It looks like these aircraft are at the vought factory in Stratford. Did they clip the wings in production,put there colors on them out of the factory, or is this pic. not taken in the states There is two pics below at the vought hangers.Just curiious thanks.

Corsair wing panels were manufactured by Briggs and Stratton as I recall, and the battle to get the wings shortened by 8 inches so they would fit on British carrier hangar decks was a lengthy one, with several options offered by the Vought factory, including compressing the oleo struts, or deflating the tires....in the end, cutting 8 inches off of each outer wing panel was the practical solution and effectively gave a few benefits, 2 of then being a slightly faster roll rate and a slightly less 'float' on landing, making carrier landings more controllable.....and yes the British Corsairs were frequently delivered with British roundels already applied.

Mark

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Mark Morris

My uncle served on a submarine which rescued a New Zealand Corsair pilot. The pilot loved that clipped wing Corsair and wished he had been able to use it against the FW-190 in Europe.

Fascinating FAA corsair photo... any more?

The wings were made by the Briggs Manufacturing Company. I am not sure that they are related to the current day Briggs & Stratten, but it would make sense that they were. The clipped wings were produced at the factory, although it is possible that some of the earlier deliveries were retrofitted in England. The fix for the problem was actually quite straight forward in the end, although there was a lot of debate over how to do it (as Mark pointed out). They just deleted the last 10"s or so of the wing tip. No cutting was needed, as there was no spar by that point. They just faired over the end, which resulted in a reduction of 8" per wing.

Cheers,
Richard

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Richard Mallory Allnutt - Photography - http://www.rmallnutt.com

I thought the Corsair struts were always flat on the ground.

If by 'flat' you mean completely compressed, as I understand it the oleo struts were meant to act as giant shock absorbers (forget whether it was fluid or air in them) and the Corsair's initially were very stiff, causing the bouncing and crashes so frequently associated with the early models....the theory was that some of the air/fluid could be taken out and then the strut compressed to get the shorter overall height required by British carrier hangar decks.....but the fix proved to be less than practical under combat and at sea conditions so they went with the shorter wings.

M

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Mark Morris

IIRC the gear legs on the Corsair have a valve internal that bypasses fluid. It acts like a normal strut on touchdown as a shock absorber. Within moments it will settle. There is a somewhat complicated process to service the strut as it has a upper and lower chamber. They also shorten or compress when retracted. The gear legs won't fit in the wheel well unless this happens.
Every picture you see of a Corsair on the ground you don't see any chrome on the strut. Compare that to a Mustang or T-6 or most others. You will see the shiny chrome of the inflated strut when it taxis or is parked. That makes the Corsair gear system unique.
Rich

From the book 'Warbird History: F4U Corsair' by Nick Veronico and John and Donna Campbell...pg.35, 'Britain takes the Corsair to war'...word for word...the number 3 solution out of nine was "Compress the main landing gear oleos with a specially designed oleo jack, or fully deflate them. (Rex Beisel, the designer of the Corsair, stated that this idea would not be practical because of the danger involved in compressing the high pressure oleos, nor would it be practical due to storage space required for the jacks-two per aircraft). In retrospect, and upon seeing so many different and in many cases impractical solutions for shortening the overall folded wing height of the Corsair, the British just decided to remodel the wing by shortening it 8 inches and aircraft that had already been delivered to the UK were modified by Blackburn aircraft Co. and by another company in New Jersey, while modifications were employed on the construction line from Corsair BuNo 17952 on for the British and NZ Corsairs.

Mark

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Mark Morris

In the Aircraft Log Book for the Cavanaugh Corsair, the first page shows it as an FG-1D, Mfg No. 3660 with an Aircraft Number of V92399.

The second page lists the aircraft as a Corsair IV, accepted from Goodyear Aircraft Corp on July 5th 1945 at U.S. Naval Air Station Norfolk, VA. The aircraft was then transferred to NAS, Jacksonville, Florida on 12th March 1946 arriving with a total of 10.5 hours on the airframe.

The first entry for Jacksonville is "Transfer to A &R for modification by verbal order from the staff".

The next log entry on 8th April 1946 lists:
"This Airplane was modified from British Configuration to U.S.Navy Class "C" Configuration in accordance with Engineering Control Board Report attached".

This would definitely confirm that the last "batch" of British Corsairs (which was originally destined for the Fleet Air Arm before the contract was cancelled) were built to the "British" spec at the factory before delivery.

Julian

I believe the BRIGGS refered to was the company who made Model A bodies for FORD. A BRIGGS body had slightly arched edges and swooping curves at the window openings where FORDs bodies were almost square cut and very unflattering sort of like Henrys suits-

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

This shows the clipped wings to advavtage..

What I was told by a Corsair guy once was that when he strut was serviced, it needed just enough pressure to extend the strut after takeoff & that also gave you just enough cushion on landing. The Corsair could be landed so softly, at least by him, that the mains were prone to get wear spots due to the tire not rotating at a very gentle touchdown until appreciable weight was applied. I've read in several Corsair books & mag articles that they were originally delivered 'serviced' & they caused the 'built in bounce' that kept them off the US carriers. Supposedly the RN guys were the ones that cured that, by deflating the struts, & that's how that came about. I've only been around a couple of retract checks many years ago & I don't recall the gear 'shortening' to go in the well.

I did some research on this several years ago for Dave Morris of the F.A.A. Museum. Thier Corsair KD431 has Briggs built wings.

The Briggs Manufacturing Co. of Detroit, MI. has no relation with Briggs & Stratton. The Briggs Co. made car parts for the Detroit auto makers.

During World War II Briggs was a major supplier to the US Armed forces, producing over a billion dollars’ worth of stamped steel and aluminum products. A record workforce of 31,000 built the following assemblies: aircraft gun turrets, doors B-26 c, bulkheads B-26c, outer wings A-20g, wing tips A-20g, ailerons A-20g, outer wings B-17g, wing tips B-17g, stabilizers B-17g, fins B-17g, ailerons B-17g, flaps B-17g, ducts B-17g, flaps B-29, tank hulls T-26-90 and 26-105, aft bomb doors B-29, forward bomb doors B-29, nose wheel doors B-29, outer wings B-29, tools, dies, fixtures, trucks, cabs and tops, tank hulls, ambulance bodies etc.

It doesn't mention Corsair wings in the article, but it is the same company.

http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/b/briggs/briggs.htm


Regards,

My bad on the 'Briggs and Stratton' assumption....when I was consulting the book I noticed it did'nt mention 'Stratton' anywhere...shoulda mentioned that....

Mark

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Mark Morris